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Executive Column: Fintech firm Akulaku Group projects ‘more conservative’ 2024
Akulaku Group, the parent group of BNPL service Akulaku, P2P lender Asetku and Bank Neo Commerce, targets 25 percent growth in loan issuance this year and has not abandoned plans to go public.
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William Li, CEO and founder of Akulaku Group. (Akulaku Group/-)
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ounded in 2016, Akulaku provided buy now, pay later (BNPL) services in Indonesia before expanding to other businesses, such as peer-to-peer lending under its brand Asetku and digital banking under Bank Neo Commerce.
The start-up raised US$100 million from Thailand-based Siam Commercial Bank and US$200 million from Japanese lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) in 2022.
Akulaku Group CEO and founder William Li spoke to The Jakarta Post’s Aditya Hadi on March 4 about the company’s growth prospects this year. He also explained how the company was responding to new Financial Services Authority (OJK) regulations and elaborated on plans to go public.
Question: With various services under your umbrella, what is the focus of Akulaku Group?
Answer: I think there are two phases for our company. In the first phase, from 2016 to 2021, we pursued quick expansion, because there were not many companies doing online financial services during that time.
But since 2021, the competition has become quite tight. Every big company buys its own bank and starts [offering] full-scale financial services. So since then, our main focus has been on our core business rather than expanding to multiple business lines.
Our strategy for the next three to five years is still to focus on our existing core businesses, which are online lending and the deposit business for our bank.
